Your thankfulness for another day is a sweet and fitting beginning, and it is well that you couple it with prayer, for all our times of pleasure ought to be times of prayer, and every season of despondency should ring us to our knees.
You have been brought, like Job, into a place of trial through losses not of your own causing, and you have done well not to charge God foolishly. It is written concerning Job that he feared God and eschewed evil, and though Satan was permitted to sift him and all God's waves and billows went over him, in all this Job sinned not. There are many schooled in the same school who have spoken after the same valiant fashion, and you may be sure that He who upheld Job can support you. When Job was among the ashes, Jehovah revealed Himself, and Job saw Him more vividly than before, and at the last the Lord restored to His servant twice as much as he had before. Take comfort then that your times are in His hands, and that He who numbers the hairs of your head will not forget your labour in seeking honest work.
Concerning your petitions for employment and for deliverance from debt, we will entreat the Lord with you that He would open doors which no man can shut and align your steps with His wise and gracious plan. Labour is honourable, and to desire to provide for your needs, to pay what is owed, and to save and live soberly is comely in His sight. We pray that if it be His will, the settlement which is due would be dealt justly and speedily, and that whether by one position or two, the Lord would supply your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus. Yet we pray more that you may be kept from unbelieving speeches in the waiting, and be enabled to say with Job, though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.
For your healing and for that of your dear friend who has treated you with such fatherly kindness, we look to the great Physician. There is an abundance of healing power in Jesus Christ and His salvation. Not only is His fruit sweet and nourishing, but the very leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations, and the least thing about Christ is healing virtue. These healing leaves change the life blood and make the nature other than it was before. Healing and pardon are placed in happy conjunction, for when the Sun of Righteousness rises with healing in His wings, He says, Son, be of good cheer, thy sins are forgiven thee. We will pray that the Lord would lay His healing hand upon your body where the injuries of that accident still linger, and that He would restore your friend, and above all that you both may know the deeper healing of soul which comes through forgiveness by the blood of Christ alone, for there is salvation in no other.
You ask also for genuine fellowship and for a godly husband, and you speak of waiting and of being teased for your waiting. The Lord knows the desire of your heart, and it is good that you desire marriage as God ordained it, a lifelong covenant of one man and one woman, entered into in the Lord and kept in purity, for sex and living together belong within that covenant alone. We will pray that the Lord in His perfect timing would bring into your life a man after the pattern of Boaz, a faithful Christian man who will love you, cherish you and lead your home in the fear of God, if it be His will for you. Be not hasty, nor turn aside to the right or to the left from the way of holiness to find companionship, but wait upon the Lord, who maketh all things beautiful in His time. He who gave Ruth favour in the eyes of Boaz can do the same for you, and whether He gives or withholds, He will give grace to bear the waiting and to use your singleness for His glory.
Let us pray together.
O Lord our God, who hast revealed Thyself in Jesus Christ, in whom alone is salvation, we thank Thee for this Thy child who comes with a grateful heart. Thou seest the applications sent, the interview past, and the need for daily bread. Provide, we beseech Thee, such honest employment as Thou seest best, and cause justice to be done concerning the debt laid upon her. Heal her body from every injury, and heal her dear friend, and let both feel the virtue of those healing leaves which flow from Christ. Grant genuine and godly friends to surround her, and if it please Thee, grant a husband who loves Thee first and will love her as Christ loves His Church, in holy and lifelong marriage. Keep her steps in Thy way, give her fresh oil and renewed strength as Thou didst for Job, and let her glory be fresh in Thee. All this we ask in the name of Jesus our only hope, Amen.
